Working from the Heartland

Lisbeth Selsor
Director of Human Resources, Winterthur Gardens
Wilmington, Delaware

Lisbeth Selsor will be celebrating her 10th anniversary at Winterthur soon. She's astonished at how fast the time has flown, and impressed by how long she's stay. Before Winterthur came into her life, 4 and a half years was the longest tenure she has had. Beth came to Winterthur like a person steps onto a boat from a dock: In a single step she left an invironment that was entirely unsuited to her values and onto a property that has allowed her to create a brand new department precisely according to her values and standards.

"I've been in human resource management since 1979, mostly in banking and Fortune 500 companies," she says. "It was hard for me to get excited about credit cards and putting people in debt. I don't believe in debt.

"The chairman of my company also clearly disliked people," she says. "One day I was talking to a colleague over lunch when we made that observation. That must have done it for me. Because within six months, I had found a new job."

Contrary to the wisdom that you can't find good jobs in the classifieds, that's where she found the ad for a human resources director at Winterthur. She carried that ad around with her for several days before showing it to her sister. "You know it sounds just like you," her sister said, and soon Beth found herself with the new job of creating a human resources department entirely from scratch. And she entered an environment where the people truly like each other and what they're doing.

"Most people come to work at Winterthur because this is where they really want to work," she says. "It gives them something professionally or personally that fits a need in their lives.

"People like that give you energy. You want to work with people who are excited with what they're doing. If you're a good HR person you have a better chance to get in and understand their business, their vocabulary and what makes them energized about their job. Then you're working together more as a partner. And they're more likely to use you as a resource."

Which throws a happy challenge in her direction: "You can't stand back and not participate. It creates the opportunity for me to be better at my job."

Her decade at Winterthur also has given her a chance to feel better about her career. This is a far cry from the days when she felt she was supporting an industry that urges American consumers into the stressful circumstances of debt.

"I like to think of myself as a consultant who helps managers create environments where employees are motivated and are happy to work. I am especially proud of the way our policies reflect Winterthur's philosophy of treating people with the respect they deserve as adults with their own lives and important decisions that are made everyday at home.

"If you treat people like adults, they'll act like it. And you get it back. It's so simple. You don't leave your mind at home. We all have adult lives. We pay bills, many of us pay mortgages and raise children and make decisions about their lives and schooling. Why do so many companies treat their employees like they leave their brains at home before coming to work in the morning?"

"Obviously the laws require that we lay down certain formal policies and procedures. But to me, the ideal employee and management handbook would have just one page. You open it up and it says, 'Use your own best judgement.' That would be wonderful.

"Do we get complaints? Of course, we have 500 people. We have employees who go so far back that they used to work for Mr. DuPont to the newly hired PhDs," she says. "Am I too nice sometimes? Probably. But I'd rather err on that side than the other."

Selsor agrees that a company's prospects are largely determined by how much the employees believe in the company's mission. She discovered in her own career the negative effects of working for a company that represented a value completely contrary to her own principles. In the same lesson she also observed the destructiveness of a leadership that clearly didn't care about people in general.

At Winterthur she also observes first hand what happens when people love their work, believe in the organization's mission, and in return the organization believes in its people.

"At the credit card company, I was so wrapped up in my work and trying to make it right. But ultimately the journey could never be like the one we have here because they just didn't care. But here at Winterthur it's entirely different.

"People are going to be motivated if they feel good about the mission of the organization, and they're going to buy into their work to the extent they understand how they fit into that mission. If you can't communicate it clearly, and live what you say you will live once you're here, you will lose them.

"There's just a lot of angst right now for people in the Baby Boomer stages who are saying, 'It's not as good as it was painted to be, and I want something different.' And what they want is what we have at Winterthur."

Copyright 2005 by Martha Finney. All rights reserved.